Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Duniam, it's a fascinating analysis, isn't it, because there's this real sliding doors moment. You like to talk about responsible government. I'd be interested to understand your perception of what a responsible opposition does because you dealt yourself out of this from the very beginning. Our government indicated a willingness to work with all willing partners across the parliament, and we engaged with those senators and members who were willing to engage with us. We consulted with them just as we consulted with community organisations and business organisations in response to an unequivocal call for policy certainty in the climate and energy space—a call which your government ignored and which we were determined to address because we understood the consequences for the Australian people if energy policy were allowed to continue to drift as it did under Mr Taylor.

Somewhere in that long preamble was an assertion that there had been no modelling done or no consideration of the way that a target would work, and that is simply wrong. There has been an extended period of consultation about that and some very explicit information is in the public domain, but perhaps I can communicate this. The proposed 4.9 per cent decline rate includes explicit consideration of emissions from new anticipated developments, consistent with Australia's emissions projections 2022. Those projections, as you understand, include information about future growth in emissions from a range of sectors arising from economic activity in those sectors. The 4.9 per cent rate also allows for an average annual anticipated production growth of 0.7 per cent.

The reserve referenced in the January consultation paper provided additional assurance in relation to uncertainty about production and emissions from new and existing facilities—that is to say, there was a buffer built in, first, for growth; second, for new facilities; and, third, for uncertainty. The quantum of the reserve was 17 megatonnes. Following consultation with stakeholders, as I explained last night, the qualification test for trade exposed baseline adjustments for the manufacturing sector has changed. That changes the sort of thing you'd expect when we speak to stakeholders. We are speaking to them and responding to the issues they're raising with us.

For this reason, the overall quantum of the reserve will be recalculated for the final safeguard rule amendments, as I indicated last night. It's anticipated that that final safeguard rule will be made by the end of April 2023 and will be accompanied by an explanatory statement setting out the detail of the arrangements.